Austin Independent School District

A pandemic waiver allowing parents and guardians to pick up free meals from schools expired at the end of this school year in Texas. Some are now concerned fewer students will have access to nutritious food over the summer.

Austin Independent School District Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde might be leaving the district for Dallas.

Students and staff will now have Feb. 11 and March 4 off. Teachers and campus-based staff will still be paid.

Austin ISD and Hays CISD did not have enough subs to cover all the requests they got this week.

Austin Public Health is keeping Austin in Stage 4 for now, but says Stage 5 is "imminent without demonstrative behavior changes." The agency says about 1 in 3 COVID-19 tests are coming back positive in Central Texas.

Over the summer, Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde said if the district saw 77,000 students enroll, staff would get 2% raises. But only 74,000 students enrolled this year.

The district said it's sometimes not receiving food orders from suppliers. Meal service will continue, but the food options might change.

Those districts include several border school districts including La Joya, Brownsville and Hidalgo ISDs — as well as districts in the state’s larger metropolitan areas that later joined the lawsuit, including Houston, Austin and Dallas.

The district’s refugee family support office will provide interpreters, test student’s English proficiency and help train teachers on how to recognize signs of trauma.

The remote-learning program, which launched Tuesday, was hastily put together in the last few weeks after the spread of the delta variant upset the district's plans for fully in-person classes this year.